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Rabbi Dr. Jon Kelsen is Dean at YCT, where he has previously taught Talmud and Pedagogy. Prior to this, Rabbi Kelsen was Rosh Kollel of the Drisha Kollel as well as an adjunct faculty member at the Pardes Institute. He received ordination from Rabbis Daniel Landes and Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg, and received his doctorate in Education and Jewish Studies at New York University as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. < Back Rabbi Dr. Jon Kelsen Contributor Rabbi Dr. Jon Kelsen is Dean at YCT, where he has previously taught Talmud and Pedagogy. Prior to this, Rabbi Kelsen was Rosh Kollel of the Drisha Kollel as well as an adjunct faculty member at the Pardes Institute. He received ordination from Rabbis Daniel Landes and Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg, and received his doctorate in Education and Jewish Studies at New York University as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. Parshat Emor: Making it All Count

Philosophy, theology, and science merge in Aletheia Today, the magazine for people who believe in God and science. Process philosophy, scripture study, and critical essays bring science and faith together with western philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead and Jean-Paul Sartre. Deep dives into the meaning of the Old Testamant, the New Testament, and where the Bible fits into modern-day society. Is God real? Does Heaven exist? Find your answers to life's questions at Aletheia Today. Inside This Issue The Great Convergence Science & the Yellow Submarine – Part II In this issue of ATM, we will finish our journey. We will visit all the remaining “seas” (I promise), plus Pepperland itself. So, hang on tight! The Nature of Time Confining events within a single order of magnitude reinforces our tendency to categorize events as past, present, or future. After all, if a quantum of experience can be no more than one second long, almost everything must seem past or future from that perspective. Philosophy Imagine! Ridding the world of values comes at a very great price: “…they paved Paradise and put up a parking lot!” Parmenides I Who says there was no Facebook before Zuckerberg? It was just called ‘philosophy.’ Speaking Piraha The hidden grammar censor in our Euro-brains whispers inaudibly, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Why did the speaker place ‘tall’ and ‘basketball’ in the same sentence, unless they are somehow connected?” A major fallacy that comes with a huge price tag. Seen or Unseen, why the Background Matters If a tiny thread had the power to ruin a movie, what in my own life, deep in the background, bears such importance to my bigger picture? And if it’s so important, why isn’t it front and center? Theology Corinthians How is it that God can perform the miracle of Incarnation? Or to put it more accurately, how is it that God is the miracle of Incarnation. The Final Psalms Ultimately, the Kingdom of Heaven is the transfiguration of the historical realm into the eternal realm, according to God’s values. Culture & The Arts Learn to Swym “Language Endures. We Don’t” – now that is a bumper sticker! Social Dynamics Pulling that off was more artistic in his opinion than any of the “new age” stuff out there pushing the envelope. Tweens, Teens, & Young Adults Alice In Looking-glass world, there’s plenty of there and then, but not a whiff of here and now. Xiako Can't Count So, what’s up with the Piraha? How can they get by without numbers? Spirituality Judas Taught Me the Beatitudes This nasty turn unnerved me, so I gathered myself together and drew a table with my comfortable beatitudes on one side and my uncomfortable ones on the other... BeHukkotai: Why Land is Different Land is imbued with holiness, which means that, like God, it is beyond human measures of usefulness or control. The Serenity Prayer Is the Sermon ‘in the can’ after all? Prayer to Combat Disillusionment in Faith Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back The Haiku Challenge Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry usually consisting of 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Starting with our Special Beach Issue, each issue of ATM will include Haiku, selected by our editors from submissions by you, our loyal readers. Please send us your Haiku to editor@aletheiatoday.com. Be sure to put “Haiku Challenge” in the subject line, and your seventeen-syllable poem may be shared with the world. (You can read more about haikus and see examples in Haiku Corner in this issue of AT Magazine.) Previous Share Return to the Table of Contents, Beach Issue Next Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Meggie Gates Contributor Meggie Gates is a freelance writer living in Chicago, Illinois. In the past, their work has appeared in the Chicago Reader , Southside Weekly , and Vulture Magazine . You can find more of their work or what karaoke bar they're singing at this weekend here. How the Saints Taught Me Feminism

< Back Cordoba 999 David Cowles Dec 6, 2022 “…the city had 260,000 residential units, 80,000 shops, 13,000 looms, 5,000 mills, and 4,000 open air markets… the central library contained over 400,000 volumes (allegedly more than the library at Alexandria before the conflagration.)” It is customary to trash the Middle Ages (500 – 1500 CE). Historians used to refer to this period as the ‘Dark Ages’, and when we wish to describe an incident of extreme violence, we call it going medieval . There is some truth to this characterization, but as we shall soon see, not much . For example, it is true that both the per capita GDP and the literacy rate declined precipitously after the Fall of Rome (476). But these things did not happen in a vacuum. The last 100 years of the Roman Empire had been a ‘feeding frenzy’ as Northern tribes broke through Rome’s defenses, invaded Italy, and sacked Rome, denuding her of her wealth. The economy of the late Roman Empire was undoubtedly bloated. It was a ‘bubble economy’, based in large part on plunder and slavery. It was unsustainable. To make matters worse, the period from 500 to 800 CE was a period of ‘climate change’; drought ravaged the agricultural economy. Then, the advent of Islam in the 7 th century closed the Mediterranean to ‘international’ commerce and put military pressure on Europe’s southern borders. A perfect storm! The meteoric rise of Christianity didn’t help…at least not at first. These pesky goodie-two-shoes were uncomfortable with slavery, had little taste for war, and failed to place ‘personal wealth’ on its proper pedestal. They were, in a word, more concerned with the economy of heaven than they were with the economy on earth. What’s the Federal Reserve to do? All in all, it was undoubtedly a tough 300 years! “A great time to visit, but…” By the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 CE, however, Europe was once again in growth mode, and with growth comes opportunity. The world is being reborn; get in on the ground floor! This is going to be bigger than Microsoft and Apple combined. So begins a 700-year period of progress: social, economic, and intellectual. This was the golden age of Middle Earth, before the Twilight of the Gods , Götterdämmerung ( aka Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment). Shorn of Roman authority, society clearly needed to reorganize, top to bottom, to reflect the new facts on the ground. The resulting feudal system is a work of ‘cosmic genius’…but that’s not the subject of this article. Hint : stay tuned to ATM and TWS for more! Sadly, this cannot be a complete account of the achievements of the Middle Ages; but rather than risk ‘damning with faint praise’, I will limit myself to a single data point: Welcome to Cordova, 999. It is widely assumed that urbanization was a late and ‘imperfect’ development in Medieval history, so let’s just test that hypothesis. Take the money you saved by cancelling your first-class ticket to Lhasa and travel in coach to Cordova, Spain. (Cordova is a more expensive destination because to get there, you need to travel more than 1,000 years… as well as 5,000 miles.) The year is 999, the midpoint of feudal society’s ‘middle age’. Are you expecting a sleepy village with pack animals roaming the streets and residents lounging in precious shade? Disabuse yourself! In 999, Cordova had a population of at least 500,000. To put this in context, that’s more people than live right now in Miami, Atlanta, Cleveland, or St. Louis. To serve this massive population, the city had 260,000 residential units, 80,000 shops, 13,000 looms, 5,000 mills, and 4,000 open air markets. Lest you think this teeming metropolis neglected public works, Cordova had 300 public baths, wide, paved streets, lit every evening by oil lamps, an underground sewerage system, and raised sidewalks to facilitate pedestrian traffic. Farmers relied on irrigation and crop rotation to optimize yield. Nor did Cordova neglect the life of the mind. It has been said that books were more highly prized there than jewels; the central library contained over 400,000 volumes (allegedly more than the library at Alexandria before the conflagration.) “Ok, this is amazing. How come everyone doesn’t know about it this?” It is said that history is written by the winners. True, but more than that, history is written by the would-be winners. The first spin-doctors were historians. The primary purpose of ‘History’ is to provide the now current social order with an appropriate ‘origin story’, one that explains and justifies the world that is . History is first and foremost Mythology. Marx said that the purpose of Philosophy is not to explain the world, but to change it. He might have said the same of History. History has a dual function: to justify the world that is and to shape the world to come. History is Propaganda! Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Deborah Rutherford Contributor Hi. I am Deborah Rutherford, a Christian wife, passionate about Jesus and her family. I am currently a writer, makeup artist, and sometimes singer. You can find me on my blog at www.deborahrutherford.com. The Sacred Pause of Autumn Embracing the Sacred Season of Summer: Who Will You Be at the End of Summer The Dance of Autumn Prayer for Resting in God's Timing, Ways, and Rhythm

< Back Self, Inc. David Cowles “You’re the CEO of Self, Inc…What’s your mission statement?” You can’t open a business today without a Mission Statement. Before you manufacture a single widget or serve a single burger, you have to tell the world all the good things you’re going to do for it: “Our mission is You , our customer, so we will always deliver a quality product at a fair price. We are committed to maintaining a healthy environment through sustainable business practices and a carbon neutral footprint. We cherish diversity. We offer all members of our business family a competitive, living wage, a generous package of workplace benefits, and opportunities for personal and professional growth.” How’d I do? Around the turn of the century (yes, we can say that now and mean 2000, not 1900), it was fashionable for self-helpers to proclaim, “You are the CEO of Self, Inc.” It’s not wrong. So, M/M CEO, what’s your mission statement? “I just want to be happy, And I want my life partner to be happy too. I want my kids to have happy childhoods, And satisfying adult lives. And, of course, I deserve to be happy too.” Well, sorry, but I won’t be buying any stock in your IPO. Apparently, you didn’t get Life’s memo. I think you should sit down for this. Ready? “No one is happy…and no one is ever going to be happy!” It’s not that life is so terrible (unless it is); it’s because happiness is not a thing. For the most part, life is just life. And life doesn’t make anyone happy. It’s not supposed to! That’s not what life is; that’s not its purpose. Does water make a fish happy? Or does it just enable it to be a fish? When you were very, very small, someone whispered in your ear, “The purpose of life is happiness.” Unlike other whispers, this one took. I mean, why not be happy? As if! No one chooses to be truly miserable, yet all of us are miserable, at least some of the time. Then what is happiness? The absence of misery? Ok – but do we require something more – like ecstasy (not the drug) or euphoria or contentment…? So according to your mission statement, the purpose of life is your happiness. When you say that, do you mean that’s the purpose of all life…or just your life? All life? Then you’re a megalomaniac. Just your life? Then you’re pathetic. Sorry, but you’ve been given the great gift (grift?) of life…and you plan to spend it, How? Crouched in a corner, wrapped in cotton batten, mumbling, “Please don’t hurt me,” until it’s all mercifully over? I’m not on board. If Happiness is my Summum Bonum and if Life is what makes me happy, then “Woe is me!” Life ends, so Happiness must end, and ‘ Bonum ’ must vanish. Good that vanishes certainly can’t be Summum Bonum . If your goal in life is your own personal happiness, then either (1) you are unhappy today, or (2) you are afraid of being unhappy tomorrow. Either way, your happiness is incomplete; so the search for personal happiness is in fact a symptom of unhappiness . I’ve just arrived at Heathrow. “Sir, what is the purpose of your trip? Business or pleasure?” “Business!” I answer, it transforms my restless wandering into an arrow headed trajectory. Now a purpose accomplished can undoubtedly generate a sense of self-satisfaction akin to happiness; but it was not the purpose of my trip. The purpose of my trip was to do business; happiness might be my reaction if the business goes well. Suppose I had answered, “Pleasure!” instead. Pleasure is me drinking real ale on the lawn of a pub called, “The Apple and the Butterfly”, eating steak and kidney pie with a glass of port at lunch, visiting the Tate Modern, and strolling Kew Gardens. Would these pleasures make me happy? “Of course,” you say, automatically. But maybe not! Pleasure and happiness do not always go hand in hand, do they? Happiness is a measure of my success in accomplishing my purpose, but it cannot be that purpose. The instant we make our happiness our purpose, we manifest our unhappiness. Happiness then is a one word oxymoron. Say it, “Happiness!” There, you did it, congratulations, now you’re an ‘Oxy Moron’. Put that on a T-shirt! Purpose does not emerge over the course of an event (it may self-modify); it wraps around the event. Purpose must be present ab initio . There are no purposeless acts, no matter how much we’d like to convince ourselves otherwise. Ultimately, the success of any event, its ‘satisfaction’, is a measure of the degree to which the event fulfilled its purpose. Purpose motivated the event, organized the environment, and energized the action; now it measures the outcome. In the terminology of Alfred North Whitehead, happiness is a subjective form that may accompany an event. It’s not the event itself; it is not the purpose of the event; it’s not the event’s subjective aim . It is not any part of the event itself, nor is it part of the event’s superject (its ‘objective immortality’). Essentially, it’s a superfluous artifact of consciousness, much like the appendix in human physiology. Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and wore a frown, but Jill was filled with laughter. Was the water fetched? Check. Did Jack and Jill both perform as expected? Check. Then how do their moods figure in? Every event has a unique purpose that entails a novel mix of Beauty, Truth, and Justice. So now at last, the sales pitch you’ve been waiting for: Will you hire me to rewrite your mission statement? I was thinking of something along these lines: “Make me a channel of (your) Peace, A conduit of Beauty, Truth, and Love.” Let me know what you think. Or have you heard something like this before? Keep the conversation going... 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Next

< Back Bible Read Backwards David Cowles What would happen if we read the Old Testament in reverse order? From back to front. What if we began with Malachi and ended with Genesis? We are accustomed to reading the Old Testament (OT) ‘in order,’ i.e., from Genesis through Malachi, from the Torah (Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, traditionally ascribed to Moses) through the Prophets. The modern Bible groups the 46 books of OT into four categories: five books of Law (Torah), 16 books of History, seven books of Wisdom, and 18 books of Prophecy. Read this way, the Old Testament tells a coherent story. First (Torah): Creation (Genesis), Liberation (Exodus), Theocracy (Leviticus). Second (History): The transition from Covenant (Exodus) to Theocracy (Leviticus) to Anarchy (Judges) to Monarchy (Samuel) to Tyranny (Kings, Chronicles, et al.), and ultimately to Captivity (Daniel, Ezekiel) in Babylon (c. 600 – 500 B.C.). Third (Prophecy): Even before the exile, social discontent was cresting in Israel and Judea. Power and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a few, and the authority of the state was frequently abused for personal gain. Prophets emerged. They condemned the immorality, the corruption, and the tyranny that had taken over Israel and Judea. They were the revolutionaries of their time. Today, we recognize the same prophetic spirit in St. Paul, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King…and even Barry Goldwater (“Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue”). Fourth (Wisdom): The prophets’ specific condemnation of the historical situation in which they found themselves is paralleled by the Wisdom Writers’ general condemnation of secular ideology. Both offer a critique of the status quo; both offer a vision of a better future. The period between the repatriation of the Judeans and the birth of Jesus was rich in ‘Wisdom Literature.’ Wisdom material stretches back to Job, David, and Solomon and forward to the time of Jesus, perhaps even including some books of the New Testament (e.g., John, Ephesians, Hebrews, Revelation). Repatriation following the Babylonian Exile gave the Hebrews a chance to start over – a revolutionary’s dream. Just as the first Israelites had formed a social structure ex nihilo in the Wilderness of Sanai, so their descendants would now have an opportunity to do the same. But how? Pick up where they’d left off c. 600 B.C? No way! Return to the values, practices, and social structures characteristic of Israel’s glory days? Way! Since 1776, we have learned a great deal about revolutionary theory and praxis. This period (250 years) will be characterized by future historians not only as the Age of Science, Reason and Technology, but also as the Age of Revolution. We have learned, for example, that all revolutions require three things: (A) A searing indictment of things as they are (status quo). (B) A clear vision of a better world to come (utopia). (C) A practical program to get from point A to point B. Sidebar : Indictment and vision are not just prerequisites for revolution; they are prerequisites for everything, i.e., for all ‘actual entities,’ all events. After all, revolution is an event! All novelty is a reaction against what is, coupled with a vision of what might be. An event builds toward that vision by incorporating other actual entities along the way according to its ‘road map.’ That road map is Torah. In the words of Bobby Kennedy, prophets “see things as they are and ask why ?” (Their answer: idolatry, immorality, injustice, and exploitation.) Wisdom writers “dream of things that never were and ask why not ?” (Same answer: idolatry, immorality, injustice, and exploitation.) The Prophets and the Wisdom writers tell the same story but from different perspectives…and we need them both: the Prophets focus on the specific historical and political situation; the Wisdom writers focus on the futility of a life without God as its guiding principle. The struggle for freedom is ongoing, and it is always waged on two fronts: freedom from the prisons others build for us (prophesy) and freedom from the prisons we build for ourselves (wisdom). But what of revolutionary praxis? How do we get from A to B? This is where most revolutionary programs fail. They get the critique and the vision parts right, but they fall short when it comes to praxis. (Dictatorship of the proletariat? You’ve got to be kidding!) For us, praxis turns out to be the easy part! Long before there were critics and visionaries (prophets and wise guys), there was already a detailed political program to redeem an alienated world – it’s called Torah: 613 rules of conduct designed to promote the general welfare - health, prosperity, justice, and peace. 613 rules? What am I, eight? You call that easy? Are you kidding? 613 rules, yes; eight-years-old old, I wish; easy, you bet; kidding, not one bit! Because there’s a secret, shh! Lean in, and I’ll whisper it to you: “Torah comes with its own Cliffs Notes built in.” (If only Tolstoy, Dickens, and Thackery had been as thoughtful.) The Torah consists of 613 laws (above), 611 of them are specific laws applicable to specific things or in specific situations; 2 of them are general laws, applicable to all things and all situations. Therefore, these two general laws, collectively known as the Great Commandment (Mt. 22: 37-40), summarize the other 611 (tactics) and situate them in the context of a broader strategy: ⮚ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Deut. 6: 5) ⮚ “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19: 18b) The genius of the New Testament contribution to this discussion lies in Jesus’ insertion of six keywords between ‘Deuteronomy’ and ‘Leviticus’ (above): “And a second is like it.” There are not two general laws; there is only one, and its two ‘halves’ are mirror images of one another. “On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mt. 22:40) E pluribus unum ! We have distilled the 613 commandments of the Torah down to just one: the Great Commandment. Bottom line: There is no love of God without love of neighbor, and there is no love of neighbor without love of God. To paraphrase poet John Keats, “That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know!” The Wisdom writers and the Prophets both call on Israel to return to the ‘glory days’ of Moses, Joshua, the Judges, and King David, but they base their appeals on two very different arguments. The Wisdom writers point out the absurdity inherent in living a totally secular life. Not until the 20th century do we encounter as lucid a presentation of L’absurde as we do in Ecclesiastes (3rd century B.C.). For example: “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity…I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and a chase after wind.” (1:2 – 2:26) It is important to note that the Hebrew word hebel , translated as ‘vanity,’ also means emptiness, futility, and absurdity. Welcome to the 20th century! We don’t need the Written Torah to tell us what’s right or wrong. It is written clearly in the patterns of nature (Oral Torah) and in our hearts. Today, we would say that the Wisdom writers based their argument on Natural Law. The Roman Catholic Church (and many other Christian denominations) embraces the Wisdom thesis: we can learn the will of God by studying nature and by listening to the ‘still small voice’ within us. The Law is written in the Pentateuch… and in the cosmos... and in our hearts. Have you seen the TV series, Young Sheldon ? Sheldon, a pre-teen boy, is growing up in an evangelical Christian family in rural Texas in the 1970s. The only problem: Sheldon does not believe in God; he believes in science. What could possibly go wrong? The Wisdom writers confronted an early version of this mindset 2,500 years before the first televisions began appearing in American living rooms. The key to Young Sheldon is the idea that religion and science are mutually exclusive. They are not! In fact, as the Wisdom writers make clear, they are two sides of one coin. The Prophets, on the other hand, based their appeal, not on nature but on revelation. God may have written his law into the fabric of the cosmos and study of the cosmos may give us some insights into the law, but there’s no need for telescopes or Bunsen burners. God revealed his law to Moses and the people in the Torah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, et al. call on the Israelites to return to the ways of their ancestors, to rediscover, acknowledge, and observe God’s law as it is revealed in Torah. Natural Law and Revelation go hand in hand. God’s Law is written macroscopically in the cosmos, microscopically in Torah, and nanoscopically in every human heart. But suppose today is a backwards day… What would happen if we read the Old Testament in reverse order? From back to front. What if we began with Malachi and ended with Genesis? The Prophets painstakingly dissect the evils of contemporary society. The Wisdom writers point out the absurdity of living one’s life according to the prevailing, secular ideology. Both the Prophets and the Wisdom writers intersperse visions of a post-revolutionary utopia, best summarized by Isaiah 11: 6 - 9: “The wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the kid...the nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain…” So, between the Prophets and the Wisdom writers, we have two of the elements we need for a successful revolution. We have a searing critique of things as they are and a clear and compelling vision of things as they could be. As we have learned repeatedly over the past four centuries, a purely negative critique is unlikely to succeed unless it is accompanied by an appealing vision of an alternative future. Successful revolutions are rarely based on despair; they are almost always based on hope. (That’s why we call them ‘Revolutions of Rising Expectations.’) During the periods of Prophesy and Wisdom, Israel was an absolute monarchy, but its rulers, its kings, were not cut from the same cloth as King David. To overgeneralize, they were incompetent, ineffective, greedy, and corrupt. Reading OT backwards, we move from dictatorship and tyranny to a constitutional monarchy (Solomon, David and Saul), from monarchy to what might best be called ‘benevolent anarchism’ (Judges), and finally from anarchism to Theocracy (Joshua and the Torah). The goal of every revolutionary program is the same (though often expressed in very different terms): “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What else is there? What else could there be? Here is where praxis comes into play for individuals, as well as for nations: learn the will of God and conform to it! The contemporary revolutionary may elect to follow the 611 specific commandments of Torah or just the two general commandments (i.e., the Great Commandment). Both strategies lead to the same result: the Kingdom of God on Earth. And what is that Kingdom? Reading the Bible backwards, i.e., from Malachi 3:34 through Genesis 1:1, the Kingdom of God is the Garden of Eden! In this reading, Paradise is not a primordial state from which we fell; it is the eschaton for which we strive. So, the Old Testament is the ultimate palindrome. It is the same, whether you read it backwards or forwards. And what of the New Testament? Well, reading the New Testament (NT) in order, i.e., from Matthew through Revelation, is the same as reading the Old Testament from Malachi through Genesis. NT begins with a searing critique of Israel under Roman rule (the synoptic Gospels), and it offers its own foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven (Revelation). And its revolutionary praxis? “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13: 34) David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back The Nature of Time David Cowles Confining events within a single order of magnitude reinforces our tendency to categorize events as past, present, or future. After all, if a quantum of experience can be no more than one second long, almost everything must seem past or future from that perspective. At first glance, our lives seem to be strings of bead-like events. No sooner have we experienced one sensation, thought, feeling, or action than another takes its place. We have a vague sense that we can string these events along a timeline and group them as past , present , or future . But on further reflection, it is clear that this idea is absurd. Events don’t succeed one another like conscripts boarding a warship; they overlap. I am all at once aware of many sensations, thoughts, feelings, and acts; it’s hardly ever clear when one stops, and another begins. Events are not points…or beads. Events have duration and different events have different durations, and the duration of one event necessarily overlaps with the duration of at least one other event. The human nervous system is attuned to events that fall within a certain range, i.e., events with a duration of somewhere between one second and one-tenth of one second. If an event has a duration of less than one-tenth of a second, we normally don’t register it at all, unless perhaps as undifferentiated background. If an event has duration of more than a second, we normally try to break it up into multiple, sequential events. Our naïve sense that events normally last a second or less has everything to do with our perceptual & cognitive apparatus and absolutely nothing to do with the nature of events themselves. Whatever the world may be, we experience it in one second bursts . There is absolutely no theoretical reason why event duration should be confined within a single order of magnitude. On the contrary, we know that there are events with durations orders of magnitude shorter than a second and there is no reason not to assume that there are other events with durations orders of magnitude longer than a second. Confining events within a single order of magnitude reinforces our tendency to categorize events as past, present, or future. After all, if a quantum of experience can be no more than one second long, almost everything must seem past or future from that perspective. We need to ask a different question: How do the myriad events that constitute our lives relate to one another? Are they always laid out more or less neatly along a timeline, like clothes drying in the sun, or are more complex species of ordering possible? It turns out that any two events may relate to one another in 6 different ways: (1) They may be tangent (i.e., sequential) (2) They may overlap . (3) One may be embedded in the other. A model universe that is connected in these three ways and only these three ways does not fully account for the phenomena of connectedness (solidarity) that we experience in everyday life, or in the laboratory, so we so must continue. In these first three modes, connectivity is a function of overlap: at a point, across a region, or in the entirety. Therefore, in these modes, connected entities do not require space or time to operate, and we do not need a concept of space or time to understand them. On the other hand, the connectivity delivered by these three modes, even working together, is fragile, and in my view, too fragile to account for the persistent and enduring universe we experience. This level of connectivity lacks redundancy (and therefore it lacks resiliency.) It can neither correct itself nor reinforce itself. The entire House of Cards is always ‘just one false negative’ away from total collapse. From here on, though, things get more interesting. The final three modes of connectivity provide the glue needed to hold our world together and allow it to function as an organism: (4) Two events (A and B) may be disjoint, but both events may overlap a common third event (C). This is the special case of relatedness that single-handedly leads to the popular notion of “past, present, future”: when three events are connected in this way, one is commonly, if arbitrarily, thought to be in the past and one in the future of the third event (the so-called present). In this mode, A and B do not overlap. Therefore, A and B do not directly influence one another. A and B both overlap C. Each potentially influences C and both are potentially influenced by C. Therefore, indirectly, A and B may influence one another after all, through the mediation of C. Let’s do a deeper dive! The phenomenon of time ‘happens’ when and only when A influences B and B influences C and no other ‘influential pathways’ are operative. No reflection, no recursion, and no reciprocity; no 3 R’s. But there is no a priori reason to assume that influences are linear. For example, influences couldrecur (as in a loop ) . A could influence B and B could influence C and C could influence A. “Karma is a b*tch!” In this model, A, B, C together constitute a self-organized unity, a triangle, an uber-event snatched from the ‘flow’ of linear time. Perhaps this is the origin of ‘societies,’ groupings of events (or entities) that function, at least sometimes, as one single coordinated entity. So-called societies include the persistent and enduring groupings we know as objects . This phenomenon is what we call recursion ; it lies at the heart of what we call identity . Or perhaps, while A is influencing B, B is busy influencing A. This phenomenon is what we call reciprocation , and it lies at the heart of what we call relationship . Finally, as A is influencing B, A may be influencing itself in the exact same way. “What I do unto others, I do unto myself.” This phenomenon is what we call reflection ; it lies at the heart of what we call growth . In this last case, A’s relation to B is also A’s relation to itself. It is the contention of this essay that events are ultimately connected like the vertices of a Platonic solid (e.g., a tetrahedron), not like points on a line. Every event (node) connects with every other event, exhibiting multiple forms of connectivity in the process. Our naïve concept of linear connectedness is valid only when confined to each individual edge of the Platonic solid, and then only when the connecting line segment is viewed as a vector. Linear connectedness, if it’s even a thing, is a very special and limiting case of the broader, more inclusive, reality. Imagine a child sketching a Tetrahedron on a piece of paper. She starts at a point (call it A) and draws a line segment (vector) from point A to point B. Then she draws another vector from point B to point C and so on until all 4 vertices are connected with each other by these vectors. So, what’s wrong with this? Well, first, does anyone really think this is how Tetrahedra come to be in nature ? Second, note that she cannot complete the Tetrahedron without (1) lifting her pencil off the page or (2) retracing (and reversing) a step. This should set off alarm bells everywhere. Nature does not lift its pencil off the page, nature does not retrace its steps, and nature does not reverse itself. (5) #5 is a more generalized version of #4. We're just extending the notions of #4 to physical fields. Now we’re talking connected and disjoint light cones instead of mere regions. If there is no single event or string of events (C) that connects the fields associated with two disjoint events (A, B), then A and B are said to be simultaneous : in the language of physics, they “lie outside each other’s light cone.” But even simultaneous events may enjoy a species of connectedness. Two events (A, B) may lie outside each other’s light cones, but both may lie in the light cone of a common third event (C). In this case, we can say that A and B are simultaneous with respect to each other but not with respect to C. (6) Finally, two events that lie outside each other’s light cones, which in turn are not mediated by any third light cone, may nonetheless constitute a single event. The two events are said to be entangled . The existence of this mode of connectivity (‘spooky action at a distance’) was a matter of conjecture until John Bell proved it in 1964. “Bell’s Theorem,” as it’s called, has since been verified experimentally by Alan Aspect (1971) and many others. Is this list of possible modes of connection exhaustive? Suppose there are two events that do not enjoy any of these modes of connectedness. What can we say about such an event pair? One thing only: we must say that no such event pair exists ! A and B do not exist for one another. Looking more closely at these modes of relatedness, we can see that they fundamentally resolve into just two modes: Serial Connectedness (#1) and Embedded Connectedness (#3). The remaining modes are hybrids of #1 and #3. This prompts further reflection. Is one mode of connectedness more fundamental, more substructural than the other? Is one a special case of the other? Does one ‘emerge’ from the other? If we could find a phenomenon that exhibited one mode of connectivity and excluded the other mode, that would go a long way toward establishing one mode as the more general, more substructural mode. I believe we can do just that: The 6th mode of connectedness allows two disjoint events (A and B) to function as a single event (C). The phenomenon of quantum entanglement described here requires as an absolute condition that the two disjoint events not connect (serially) with any other events. Any sort of serial connectedness would abort the embedding event, but without an embedding event, the two embedded events would not exist in a common universe (since they would lack any connection to one another). Therefore, without quantum entanglement, Universe as we know it would not exist. Which is what John Bell proved, QED . While we can observe the effects of quantum entanglement only under very specialized laboratory conditions, we should not conclude from that, that such events are rare. I would speculate that the Universe consists of more event pairs with “entangled connectedness” than with any other form of serial or embedded connectedness; but that is mere conjecture. In any case, the existence of entangled connectedness is sufficient to prove that serial connectivity is not a universal characteristic of all events in the Universe. Embedded connectivity, therefore, must be the more general case of connectivity, and, therefore, the sub-structural mode! Imagine that! A mode of connectedness not thought of before 1900 and unproven before 1964, turns out to be the primordial mode of connectedness across the universe. Where does this leave time ? It is a particular manifestation, linear and serial, of a much more varied concept of connectedness. That is the nature of time! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back Art & Archimedes David Cowles Feb 28, 2026 There are more things in heaven and earth, Euclid, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…or ours.” 1200 words, 5 minute read We celebrate the fact that we are children of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. We look back on the Western world prior to 1500 CE and wonder, “How did people ever live like that, think like that?” The particularly crass among us disdainfully refer to the 1,000 years immediately preceding the Renaissance as the Dark Ages . As if we, the authors of Hiroshima and the Holocaust, are in any position to denigrate others! Truth is, the years around 1500 CE did witness the single biggest upheaval in the Intellectual History of Western Europe. Machiavelli was both the catalyst and emblem of this change. In a nutshell, the theo centric Universe of the Middle Ages gave way to the modern, ego centric model. Burgeoning science gave us the illusion of control. We no longer need respond to the actions of the Universe (the gods, fate); now we can impose our will (technology). We are no longer shaped by what happens around us; now we shape what happens to reflect our own image and likeness. Following the intermediation of the Reformation, Humanism, Moral Relativism and Secularism, Narcissism has replaced Roman Catholicism as the ‘universal faith’: I believe in me! Imagine a new edition of the Baltimore Catechism: “Why am I? - To know, love, and serve myself.” Sound about right? *** Perhaps the best way to learn about any culture is to study its art. How do folks understand the world around them? How do they relate to ‘things’…and to each other? We should not be surprised then that the intellectual upheaval of the Renaissance was accompanied by a seismic shift in painting protocol. In Italy and elsewhere, artists ‘suddenly discovered’ perspective. Discovered? Feels odd to apply this term to something we simply take for granted. Consider Camille Pissarro’s Road to Marly (below). Notice how the trees and other figures pictured close to the viewer are huge compared to those in the background. The space is continuous, receding smoothly toward a fixed point on the horizon. Road to Marly - Camille Pissarro (1870) This is a Big Bang/Big Crunch universe! Pissarro’s universe begins and ends at a singularity, a point, and from that point, like a cornucopia, it inflates to fill the canvas. This landscape appears to follow the laws of Euclidean Geometry, one of a much larger group of geometries jointly known as ‘Archimedean’. These geometries incorporate the rules and properties of real numbers (arithmetic, calculus). In our minds, this is not just a model, it’s Reality . Would it surprise you then to hear that this representation of the world is virtually unknown outside of Western Europe,1500 – 1900 CE? The vast majority of human beings, past and present, see the world very differently. Take the famous Italian painter, Giotto (c. 1300). His painting of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (below) was painted (below) without perspective. The sizes of the objects represented have little to do with their situ in space. Rather their dimensions are dictated by the roles they play in the narrative. Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata - Giotto (c.1295-1300) Francis, appropriately, is huge, as is the angelic manifestation of Christ. Two nearby houses-of-prayer are tiny by comparison. One is positioned forward of Francis, one behind. Both are depicted as same-sized, indicative of the characteristics of the buildings themselves rather than their placement in the frame or relative to each other or to the viewer. Imagine Francis, as illustrated, squeezing through either door in time for matins ! The landscape itself (mountain, trees) is merely sketched, and it dissolves into an undifferentiated, monochromatic background, symbolizing uncreated light. It does not recede from the main image but rises above it. (Giotto characteristically depicts distance as height.) Finally, the trees on the mountain side are all similarly sized (tree sized) despite their varying distances from Francis…and the viewer. For centuries, post-Renaissance critics attributed these anomalies to a lack of technical proficiency. How wrong can we be! Giotto was a master of his craft, but he was painting a different world, or rather, our same world seen and understood differently: First, the size of an image is proportionate to its role in the narrative, not its position on the panel. Second, each object has its own intrinsic metric, unrelated to the metrics of the other objects. Finally, the frame does not contain the imagery; the images utterly overwhelm and overflow any edge. We approach Pissarro’s landscape as voyeurs. We are looking at the scene through a knothole in a fence. Giotto’s images, on the other hand, are projected at us. There is no question of not looking; they are in the way. We have to deal with them before we can move on. Earlier we pointed out that Pissarro’s landscape presents us with a paradigmatic model of a Euclidean universe: a place for everything and everything in its place. Giotto’s landscape is radically non-Euclidean: nothing’s in its place. In fact, its geometry is not even broadly Archimedean , much less narrowly Euclidean ! First, the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole; indeed a single part may be greater than the whole. Second, every object has its own metric, independent of other metrics, other objects, other images. Third, the value of any image is independent of its position in space or on the panel. Turns out, these are among the defining characteristics of non-Archimedean (non-A) Geometry. Check out this graphic: Now at last we can consider the Byzantine icon at the head of this article: Madonna and Child by Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1300. Much as I love Pissarro and Giotto and my own Claude assisted PowerPoint (above), this is clearly the masterpiece of our collection…and a clear exhibition of non-A Geometry in art. Mary and Jesus are the equivalent of our B and C circles (PowerPoint slide, above); A is the image as a whole. That leaves undefined that portion of A that is neither B nor C. Call it X. Our unknown artist, typical of the custom of his day, has colored this space a uniform, undifferentiated gold. If B+C > A, then B+C+X = A if and only if X = A - (B+C): in other words, B+C > A, if and only if X is a negative number. One way to make ordinary arithmetic work in a non-A universe is to allow objects (B and C) to exist in negative space (X where X < 0). Got it? Are you a non-Archimedean mathematician now? Good for you! If not, take at least this away: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Euclid, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…(or ours).” Icon of the Virgin and Child, Hodegetria variant - Byzantine or Crusader (13th Century) *** The Icon of the Virgin and Child (Hodegetria variant) centers on the theme of spiritual guidance , portraying Mary as "She who shows the Way" by gesturing toward Christ as the path to salvation. It reflects a unique intercultural synthesis , blending traditional Byzantine theological rigor with the distinct stylistic influences of 13th-century Crusader art. Finally, the icon emphasizes divine authority by depicting the Christ Child as a solemn, miniature philosopher offering a formal blessing. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

“God is dead, and we have killed him…who will wipe this blood from us?” (Nietzsche) < Back World Without God Amen David Cowles Oct 15, 2024 “God is dead, and we have killed him…who will wipe this blood from us?” (Nietzsche) Since the 16th century, the West’s overarching intellectual project has been its effort to rid the World of God! “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him (Voltaire); (but) if God did exist it would be necessary to abolish him (Bakunin); (so) if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. (Zen Koan). God is dead, and we have killed him…who will wipe this blood from us?” (Nietzsche) Science hopes one day to explain all phenomena in purely physical terms, supposedly eliminating any need to hypothesize a ‘transcendent agency’ ( aka God). Big Bang has already proven we don’t need a Creator; the universe is sui generis . Apparently Negative Vacuum Pressure does the trick. Cosmogenesis is still ex nihilo …because ‘nothing’ is not exactly nothing ! Do you have a ‘singularity phobia’? Relax. Roger Penrose tells us that Universe is an endless cycle of Big Bangs and Heat Deaths. (CCC) Hugh Everett tells us that everything that can happen does happen…in its own universe. (MWI of QM) And if a single universe makes you uncomfortable, try the Multiverse! Bottom line : the phenomenal Universe is infinite and eternal; there’s no need for God. But what about life? For that we have Chemistry. Evolution? Biology. Consciousness? Neurology. Now, all that we’ve discovered in this Age of Reason is not necessarily wrong. What’s wrong is letting a pre-determined conclusion set the agenda and fix the guard rails for our inquiry… and thinking that any of these ‘discoveries’ has any bearing on the God Hypothesis . For centuries, intellectual inquiry has been driven by a felt need to liberate humanity from its ‘primitive’ belief in a Supreme Being that transcends the phenomenal world. “Religion is the opiate of the people.” (Marx) But why? The God Hypothesis has led to the rise of various religions, some of which have given birth to institutions (e.g. Churches) that have been complicit in horrendous physical and intellectual atrocities, from child sacrifice to the Inquisition. But these same religions have motivated countless acts of charity, stimulated much legitimate intellectual inquiry, inspired magnificent works of art, architecture and music, and brokered peace between individuals, groups, and even nations. The God Hypothesis has been used to motivate, justify and even bless brutal, bloody conflicts (wars) between various ethnic groups and nation states; but religious institutions and religiously motivated individuals have also played a major role in resolving such conflicts. The God Hypothesis has been associated with various moral codes, some of which promote practices abhorrent to our modern sensibilities. But religions have also contributed to civilizing human society by condemning the unjust depravation of life or property and by contributing cultural memes like the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule. Religious institutions have sought to influence and even control folks’ thought and actions, but often in conjunction with providing essential public services, like healthcare and education, that secular society was unable or unwilling to deliver. Religious organizations have provided opportunity and ‘cover’ for individuals, often in positions of authority, to exploit the vulnerable in their orbits. Of course, no major faith condones pedophilia or any form of sexual abuse. In cultures where it is still widely practiced, it is practiced despite explicit, if ineffective, condemnation by local faiths. Any temptation to try to smooth over the atrocities visited on society by religious institutions would be misguided. Evil needs to be named and rooted out wherever it occurs. But institutions are human artifacts that, unfortunately, incorporate all the flaws (and virtues) of the people who form them. That said, religious institutions have been complicit in such evil practices no more, but sadly no less, than other human institutions. Bottom line : Individual cases notwithstanding, belief in God is ‘weakly correlated’ with either benevolent or malevolent behavior. People are who they’ve chosen to be, no matter what they say they believe. So then, why the insatiable need to rid the world of ‘divinity’? Hubris (pride): we are the tip of evolution’s arrow. The universe is ours to manage. Of course, our precious science tells us otherwise: evolution has no arrow, we are what we are by sheer accident (mutation and natural selection), and there is no way of knowing what will become of homo sapiens down the road. Apparently, we ‘follow the science’…but only when it suits us. Hmm, sounds just like some ‘religious’ people I know. In any event, we confidently affirm, “There is no higher power! We make the rules (in conjunction with the laws of physics). No one, no thing tells us what to do. Nobody puts Baby in a corner! ( Dirty Dancing ) We are the captains of our ship, the masters of our fate. In short, we are the Champions!” (Queen) How ridiculous all this sounds! Yet I fear this is how we will be remembered by Intellectual Historians in the future. “How could those people have been this naïve, this clueless?” Truth to tell, we have absolutely no control over the long term consequences of our actions. Philosophy has created a paradigm to celebrate our alienation: ‘thesis → antithesis → synthesis’. (Dialectics) Every action entails an equal and opposite reaction. (Newton) Whatever we do is almost certain to provoke a consequence that runs counter to our intent; at best, we can hope that our original motivation is reflected, however dimly, somewhere down the road. “Long I stood and looked down one (road) as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other just as fair...” (Frost) In truth, we act blindly and hope for the best. We know these things; so why do we believe otherwise? Where does our collective megalomania come from? From religion, of course! ‘Bad religion’. We accept that we are made in the image and likeness of the Omnipotent, but we deny that our behavior is subject to any higher authority. The logic is enough to baffle any Aristotelean: Religion tells us that we are the King’s X. We reject such religion as ‘mere superstition - fairy tales for children’. But we cling to the sense of importance that religion confers on us. We scaled the mountain; now we can afford to cut the ropes that got us here! Less poetically, we accept the conclusions of religion but not the process of theology. We are like the 5th grader who writes down what she thinks is the correct answer but refuses to ‘show her work’. We call ourselves ‘empiricists’: Really? Look around! The universe is a horror show - not fit even for today’s big screen. Based solely on the evidence of our senses, we have no choice but to say, “Better dead than alive, but better still…never to be born at all!” ( Ecclesiastes ) Yet we continue to have children. Why? Because we hate them? After all, we know that they will one day die and that they will suffer horribly along the way. No! We have children because we cling to eschatological hope for “a peace that the world cannot give”. ( Gospel of John ) We cling to a hope that can only come from some sort of religious faith…which of course we reject. We have recreated Plato’s Cave ( The Republic ): we mistake religion’s disembodied shadows for ‘reality’. Like Peter Pan, we have separated our shadow (hope) from its source (God). We are adrift, believing one way, acting another. Fortunately, we seem to be entering a new age. The Age of Aquarius? In the 20th century, all hopes for a mechanistic solution to the puzzle of Being were systematically dashed. We are coming once again to recognize the potential need for ‘transcendent agency’. I will not live to see whether this new bud blooms, but you, dear reader, may! Send a message back in time to let me know, ok? David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com ress, Literary Journal Spring 2023. Return to Harvest 2024 Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. 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< Back Again Elizabeth Bradfield Already, you don’t know what has passed, or when, precisely, it started. The sky has been shifting into something red for over an hour, and you’ve been blinking, taking a sip from a glass, turning a page of your book, daydreaming. The moment is close. The light is condensing into a smear of orange along the horizon, and then something happens—bee trapped inside the window, crash from the kitchen— and you’ve missed it. When I was small, my father once had me race up a long flight of unsteady, wooden stairs yelling run at my heels. Go . Faster, or you’ll miss it. And at the top of the stairs, we watched it again, the sunset. And that changed everything. He was thinking of math, the earth’s curvature and the great trick of altitude. He was thinking that he’d like to see again the sun slip into that particular evening’s end. And why shouldn’t he? Pointing off across the bay, out of breath, he lifted me to stand on the shaky rail where I swayed above a steep fall of blackberries, bees humming around the fruit as if they were in orbit around dark, clustered suns, thinking the sun couldn’t know what we’d just gotten away with. I knew it wasn’t magic, that time can’t be fooled. My legs burned from the run. I knew it was just quickness. Light. The relative pace of things. Our willingness to find ourselves out of breath above a humming decline of pollen. The sunset twice in one night, leading me to all this longing. This was republished without edits and with permission from Interpretive Work by Elizabeth Bradfield (2008, Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press.) Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of five collections, most recently Toward Antarctica and Theorem , a collaboration with artist Antonia Contro. She has co-edited the anthologies Broadsided Press: Fifteen Years of Poetic/Artistic Collaboration and Cascadia: A Field Guide Through Art, Ecology and Poetry (forthcoming 2023). Her work has been appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, and her honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship . Founder of Broadsided Press ( www.broadsidedpress.org ), Liz works as a naturalist/guide and teaches creative writing at Brandeis University. www.ebradfield.com Previous Next